Fellow Georgians, recently something has come across my radar that I’d like to bring to your awareness if you haven’t already heard about it. I had heard rumblings about it a while back, but unfortunately it seems to have become a reality.
I got a call several days back from a friend in North Georgia who is a dairy farmer. He wanted me to be aware about what he was going through, not just because I serve as the Chairman of the Senate Ag Committee but because I’m a farmer as well. He recently lost 300 acres of rented cropland that he farmed, because the family had sold it for development. He needed the land to support his dairy, so he made the decision to clear cut 150 acres of timberland he owned with the intention of converting it into crop land.
He made a deal with a logger friend to cut his timber and thought all was well, until his logger friend came back to him a week later and told him he couldn’t cut his timber because the two mills in his market area couldn’t accept his wood because of the new EU mandate that they will not allow products sold or produced in their countries to come from timberland that is not reforested.
I spoke with a few leaders in the Georgia forestry industry and learned that this is not just an isolated incident but has now happened several times in our state as this new rule is coming into full effect. The crazy part of the rule is they would have no problem taking his wood if the intention was to convert the land to solar panels but converting the land to crop land to support a dairy is not allowed. I’ve already contacted Secretary Rollins, SBA administrator Kelly Loeffler and Commissioner Tyler Harper about it and they are all working on addressing it.
My goal in addressing this with everyone is to bring awareness to the issue so that hopefully you can advocate for our state’s Ag and Forestry industry and the rural communities they help support with your congressional representatives or people in leadership in Washington when you have the opportunity. I believe President Trump’s administration is working on a new trade deal with the EU and this issue has to be addressed before anything is signed.
It’s insane that people in Brussels or Geneva are implementing rules dictating what American farmers can and cannot do with their own land. The implications for private property rights and healthy timber markets are profound as well as the need for good farm land in the future as we endeavor to meet the established need of increasing our food production by 70% by the year 2050 to be able to feed the world. American farmers and timber producers should never have people in Europe dictating whether we decide to convert our crop land into timber land or for that matter our timberland into crop land. I know the Georgia Forestry Association is working hard on the issue and are working with people in Washington to address it as well as many other organizations in other states.
At the end of the day, to me, this rule is deeply, personally offensive and stands against everything I believe in as an American farmer. Holding onto land has always been a challenge for family operations. Times change, markets change, crops change and we as farmers have to change with them in order to keep family operations viable with the goal of passing them down to the next generation. Americans have died in wars defending our freedoms and our land from being subjugated to foreign powers since the days of George Washington.
Perhaps our friends in Europe need to be reminded that we Americans have never taken very well to the yoke of tyranny even if it comes in the form of regulations
